Decommissioned Nuclear-Powered Submarines
Lord Teverson Excerpts(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
We will understand that more fully once we have finished the demonstrator project with HMS “Swiftsure”.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, the Minister says—it is not his fault—that the new nuclear submarines will not be delivered for another six years, yet the current length of patrols for the Astute class is getting longer. The crews have to cope with long periods of being away from their families and their homes. There is also stress around the recruitment of those crews. How do we square the circle over the next five or six years when, because of the maintenance of the current fleet, the length of patrols is likely to get even longer?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
Let me just say to the noble Lord that everything that happens is now my responsibility. If I gave the impression that it was not my responsibility, that certainly was not my intention. I will not evade responsibility for anything.
On the noble Lord’s question, I am not going to go into the operations of our submarine fleet in great detail on the Floor of this House, for obvious reasons. However, the noble Lord makes a point, as he has done here previously, about the welfare of submariners—indeed, the welfare of all our Armed Forces. That is something we take very seriously. We are looking to do all we can to support them and ensure that they are supported in the way they should be. In a few months’ time, or a year’s time, perhaps the noble Lord can ask the same question, and we will see whether we have made the progress we should have done; that will be my responsibility.
Combat Air Capability
Lord Teverson Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
Well, I do not know about that, but the use of drones will of course become increasingly important. With respect to the noble Lord’s suggestion, I am sure that people have heard it and will consider it in due course.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, is the Minister confident that we can keep one Vanguard submarine at sea at all times, given the strain there is on crew and our loss of crew because of the increasingly long time each mission has to take because of maintenance of the rest of the fleet?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
This is a very important question and there should be no confusion here. The noble Lord is talking about the UK’s nuclear deterrent. That forms an important part of our deterrent. We are absolutely 100% certain that we will retain a constant at-sea nuclear deterrent presence. That needs to be heard from this Chamber and across the globe. There is no way that we will in any way allow our nuclear deterrent to be compromised. That needs to be heard loud and clear.
King’s Speech
Lord Teverson Excerpts(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for giving the list of European issues. To me, it was actually a list of why we should still be there and why we should not have opted out of our continental responsibilities, so I thank the Baroness for that commentary and for that list.
To a degree, this debate has been quite downbeat in many ways, quite understandably, given the current situation we are in internationally. Who can blame us? We have democracy on the retreat globally; a European war here, not so far away from us; the United States is moving towards an isolationist position, probably whatever the outcome of the election; and we have a China under President Xi that has become assertive—unnecessarily, because we all realise that China is going to be, and is a great power, and that assertiveness is the wrong way to do it. His predecessors did it in a far more subtle way. However, I want to be upbeat, because if there is one thing I learned from my climate change brief, it is that it is no good being totally pessimistic all the time. The only way that we can move forward is to be optimistic and look at the upsides of issues.
On that basis, I first welcome very much, as other noble Members have, the fact that the Government’s attitude towards Ukraine and their policy there will remain equally robust. To me, one of the obscenities of that war, apart from the clear breach of international rule of law by that illegal invasion, is the fact that Putin has put some half a million of his citizens through the meat grinder, in terms of casualties, and it is estimated that something like 150,000 of his own citizens are fatalities as a result of that war. To me, that is the ultimate obscenity. I welcome not only the continuity of policy there; I was going to congratulate the Government on the fact that the rules around use of weapons can extend over the border, but I understand that that is not necessarily the case now and I would very much welcome the Government’s clarification on where we are on that.
In her very good speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, talked about how Russia should “prevail”. That is a strange word to use. I am sorry, I was doing my Biden thing there for a moment: she said that Ukraine should “prevail”. Does that mean that Ukraine should actually win? I would be interested to know that. The King’s Speech talked about
“a clear path to NATO membership”.
Clearly, I cannot see how Ukraine can become a member of NATO while the war continues in the way that it is at the minute, obviously because of Article 5, but what is the criteria by which Ukraine will become a member of NATO? I would be interested to hear that.
I also congratulate the Government, although it was rather pre-cooked, on their chairmanship of the European Political Community. Strangely enough, that was thanks to Liz Truss: perhaps the only good thing that she did was to agree to be a part of that community and that system. That is part of increasing our relationships with the European Union. I have a question on that. We want a stronger security relationship with Europe, and I think Europe will want to do that but will worry about the cherry-picking side. Will the Government be willing to re-enter some of the common security and defence missions? Chile has in fact contributed to some, as have Turkey, Canada and other non-EU nations, and I think ours would be an excellent entry into that.
The last thing I want to talk about has been mentioned occasionally: Sudan. It was not exactly a UK colony previously. Up to 1956, we shared it as a condominium with Egypt, but we have responsibilities there. I understand that we have been working with the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the Americans to find a way through on this. There are 8 million displaced people, and hundreds of thousands have lost their lives. We need to solve this conflict. Can the Government let us know how they see that they can move that collaboration forward to heal one of the biggest blemishes on our global stage at the moment?
Red Sea Telecommunication Cables
Lord Teverson Excerpts(8 months, 1 week ago)
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The Earl of Minto (Con)
The noble Lord makes a good point. On the whole, the cables themselves are not fixed but replaced. It is too dangerous and time-consuming to replace them because of the depth they are at and the danger from shipping. These are commercial decisions, and there are commercial sensitivities that we really cannot go into. Suffice it to say that we are acutely aware of what the risk might be in this area.
Lord Teverson (LD)
For UK data security, the rather unglamorous solution is the proliferation of these cables, which to a degree is already naturally happening commercially. Where there is real vulnerability is at landing sites, where there is a concentration of these cables. We need to diversify those landing sites on this side of the Atlantic. Does the Minister agree? If so, what action are the Government taking to make sure that takes place?
The Earl of Minto (Con)
The noble Lord is right that proliferation is an issue. As has been mentioned, the amount of data that travels through these cables is so significant that it requires all the protection it can get. The question of landing sites is very much part of the overall security resilience that we have been talking about. I can only imagine that they are going to become more and more important as we continue to suffer such an unstable global situation.
Armed Forces
Lord Teverson Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I also welcome this debate, called by the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt. For four years, I was privileged to chair the EU sub-committee dealing with foreign affairs and defence and it was a pleasure to have my noble friend Lord Selkirk as a member of that group. I want to pursue some of the themes that came out of some work that we did on European defence. A handful of things have changed quite substantially over the last couple of years. First of all, there was the American pivot to Asia which sent out all sorts of messages, the consequences of some of which we may have seen over the last month. There was also the move by Russia, and we now have the first threat to territorial integrity in Europe for 24 years. There are also a number of smaller internal and ethnic conflicts, particularly within north Africa. I just want to take one or two points from each of those.
I do not think there is any dispute that the United States was going to pivot towards Asia, and it also has a defence treaty with Australia. Over the last six months, we have seen very dangerous issues within the East China Sea, the South China Sea and the Korean peninsula which show that we need to pay great attention to that area and that there needs to be very strong American presence, rhetoric and ability to act there. It was inevitable that the USA would move to look less at Africa and Europe, and that is not going to change. In 2011, we saw America leading from the back in the Libya operation and Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, has said that if NATO did not get its act together, its future would be dim and dismal. Perhaps this is what it has been shown to be over the last year—hopefully, that will change.
I am sure that as the noble Lord, Lord Soley, has said, we need to show more than economic reaction to the situation in Ukraine. This should not be military action at present, but NATO and the European states need to show strength and resolution. We must show that we are serious and that what I call the Medvedev doctrine—looking after Russian citizens outside Russia—is not acceptable to nation states west of Russia. About two years ago, when we took evidence on European defence, we were very struck at how the Baltic states and Poland said very strongly that they did not see peace in Europe as inevitable and that they feared the Russian Federation. How right they have been.
NATO expenditure has moved down from some 2.7% of GDP in the 1990s to some 1.6%. I welcome the major change in that direction, but there is always a time when that must start to reverse, and if there is a time when it needs to reverse, it is now. This is not just about expenditure as a proportion of GDP. Europe has 1.6 or 1.7 million people in uniform but very little ability to actually deploy them, certainly not without the help of the United States. We need to start moving forward with our European allies to change this.
The Central African Republic is the other area which is very relevant today. The European Union is now sending a force there, postponed by three months, but the situation there is absolutely critical. This is telling, given that it is 20 years since the Rwandan situation. I was very pleased to see a press release from DfID saying that we were supporting security there, but we were doing it by giving £2 million to UNHCR. Quite frankly, what is needed is for us, either with the European Union force or with France bilaterally, to send real military support to stop the potential genocide between Muslims and Christians there.
President Obama said at the EU-American summit earlier this month that freedom is not free. That may be a cliché and it may sound trite, but I believe at this time that it is absolutely true.
Energy Bill
Lord Teverson Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Jenkin of Roding
When I first went to the Treasury in 1970, one of the things they said was, “You’ve got to realise that 50% of the population does not understand what 50% means”.
Lord Teverson
Do we know which 50%? That is the question.
My noble friend Lady Maddock is being too modest. When we went through the Green Energy Bill we encountered some really strange language. We asked why it was written in that way, and it turned out it was supposed to be written in plain English—in a way that people would understand. Actually, this amendment is perfect for what it should be. The draftsman has written it in a clear and easily understood format. That is exactly what it should say, and I hope that the Secretary of State, the Minister and the Government will see a way to bring it in.
Somalia: Piracy (EUC Report)
Lord Teverson Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Teverson
That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report of the European Union Committee on Turning the Tide on Piracy, Building Somalia’s future: Follow-up report on the EU’s Operation Atalanta and beyond (3rd Report, HL Paper 43).
Lord Teverson
My Lords, we have a bucket filling up with water and this debate is all about turning the tide. I do not know whether it will also solve the leak problems here in Grand Committee.
It is not often that a committee looks at a subject comprehensively, as we did in 2010, and then decides to revisit it two years later because it feels it of sufficient importance that a number of lessons needed to be learnt and to see how an operation has moved forward. This is what we did with regard to Operation Atalanta and the other problems regarding Somalia.
I shall remind the Committee of the reasons for Operation Atalanta to begin with. It was not just about commercial shipping, which we most know it for. It was about protecting the World Food Programme, which was keeping vast numbers of people alive and away from starvation in Somalia itself, and getting that product to the port of Mogadishu was quite a challenge. It was also technically about protecting Somalia’s fisheries and has actually been pretty successful at that, but not of any great help to the Somalis. It was also about helping the commercial shipping side in terms of repulsing piracy on one of the world’s most important trade routes. Atalanta itself is one of three organised operations; Atalanta is the European Union one and there is NATO’s Ocean Shield, while Combined Task Force 151 is a coalition of other countries. There are also a number of independent operators as well, which we will come back to.
I shall set the scene by coming back to the 2010 report, in which we made a number of specific observations and recommendations. We had the World Food Programme leasing ships that were probably the slowest that ploughed the oceans anywhere on the globe. Why? Because they were the cheapest. However, that meant they were the most vulnerable and, because of the way that the charter agreement was, they did not allow military contingents on those vessels so they had to be shadowed by very expensive and scarce warships from the areas of issue right the way through to port. There was a lack of tanker refuelling, which meant that the best naval vessels had to go backwards and forwards to port in order to refuel, wasting a lot of time. If pirates were captured, there was often nowhere to send them or try them, because western navies were reluctant to bring those pirates back to their own shores. The insurance companies seemed to be oblivious to the problem or not to care about it. As far as they were concerned, it was a loss, they got their income and there was an occasional “hit” in terms of ransoms that had to be paid out, but there was no responsibility on the part of the insurance industry.
The Indian Ocean and the Gulf are a vast ocean, yet there is very little air surveillance. In fact, Luxembourg had to rent a private plane on behalf of Atalanta, which was used as surveillance out of the Seychelles, and that was about all there was to begin with. There was an undisciplined merchant fleet, which is still a problem to some degree, and many masters did not pay attention to the convoy systems or the various other ways of repulsing or at least putting off piracy attention. We also encountered the issue that the European Union and NATO seemed not to be managing to get on very well operationally, as always.
What was the result of that? In 2010 there were 174 attacks and 47 pirated ships. More than that, however, through this effort we managed to displace this problem from the Gulf right out to the Indian Ocean as a whole, so it became a far more difficult problem. Somali piracy, which is part of the private sector and private entrepreneurship to a large degree, found new ways of modifying the model through mother ships and all sorts of other ways, so that it could be more successful over that broader area. That brought major economic issues—we often forget this—to those littoral states in east Africa, whether it be Somalia itself, Tanzania, Kenya or the Seychelles. Because people feared to transit those waters or go to port in those areas, there were direct economic consequences. Tourism was also affected. The one area that did benefit, I am told, is the fisheries stocks. No one dared go there, so the fisheries did well. Unfortunately, the Somalis themselves probably did not benefit much from that.
What is the situation now? In 2012 the attacks decreased from 174—in 2010—to 36; instead of 47 pirated ships in 2010, we only had five. In 2013 so far—these are early days, admittedly—there have been only two attacks and no pirated vessels whatever. During that whole time, the World Food Programme has not suffered one loss. So, in some ways, the prime reason for Atalanta has been successful.
Why has this happened? My colleagues and fellow noble Lords will no doubt go through this. However, the reasons include very strong international co-operation, not just between those three forces but also between independent nations. This includes China, which for the first time has operated outside its regional area; India, Russia and even Iran—although that is one country where the co-operation has not been so great. The international effort has led to success. There has also been real practical working at sea, even at a practical level between the European Union and NATO, which must be a first. Merchant fleet behaviour has become much better through the work of Northwood. Surveillance and intelligence using the Seychelles as a base has worked well; air surveillance has been far more effective and consistent; and intelligence has been shared.
The committee also recognised that there has been a more robust approach. We are regularly reminded that this is a constabulary operation, not a military one, and that the use of force therefore has to be proportionate and used carefully. However, we generally regarded the raid on the coast as a successful instance of putting down a marker to show that the European Union force was serious in terms of its intent regarding pirate bases. Also, armed guards are now allowed on most of the merchant fleet. Our own committee was against this originally but we have changed our mind on that. However, I would be interested to hear the Government’s view on how the programme has worked. Perhaps most significant of all, in his evidence to us Alexander Rondos, the EU special representative, described Somalia and its cities as having bustle and growth, although he saw it as an economy without a state.
What are the lessons we learnt? The obvious ones are that there is disorder where there are weak states and where the rule of law does not go to the borders; and that regardless of whether that is due to religious militancy or, as here, private sector entrepreneurship, it is very bad for nationals and for the international community. We have seen a different sort of piracy in west Africa as well and we will need to tackle that over time, too. We also know that it is good to have a comprehensive policy. We now have a much more comprehensive one in terms of the European Union’s Horn of Africa policy in Atalanta, the EU trading mission for Somali troops and increasing the coastal capabilities of all those states through the EUCAP NESTOR operation. We felt that the Gulf states should be more involved, but we know that until we solve problems onshore in Somalia, those operations will have to remain.
I congratulate a number of actors on their work, the Seychelles in particular. The Foreign Ministry of the Seychelles came and gave us evidence. It worked strongly and very responsibly with the community. At Northwood, we saw a most professional operation which was hugely international in its scope. We felt great confidence in it and it has clearly been a major part of success. However, I commend perhaps most of all the international co-operation between all those forces; for example, between the UK and France—one of the French warships, FS “Surcouf”, has a UK Lynx helicopter on it. I also commend the Seychelles, Kenya and Mauritius on the trial and imprisonment of pirates. However, I remind my fellow Members of this House that four vessels are still being held; that is, 108 human beings are still being held as hostages in those conditions. We have a ready business model that can be used elsewhere in the world. I believe also that we have failed to see the needs and the hopes of the Somali people in judging this operation. Perhaps looking inland, as well as out to sea, is something that we need to learn from this otherwise successful operation. I beg to move.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his response and particularly for the good news—I am delighted to be corrected—that we are down to two vessels and 60 hostages. That has to be very good news for the families and the people who are involved. I hope that we can bring those figures down to zero before too long.
When I mentioned World Food Programme vessels coming into Mogadishu, I meant Djibouti. Clearly, they could not go into Mogadishu because it was not under any sensible control.
Perhaps I may respond briefly to what the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, said about ransoms. We considered this in our first report but not in our second. I recognise that this is a hole in the report. In fact, the bit that was put in was really from another EU Committee report through the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. Perhaps we can look at this further.
Will the Minister ask his officials to do a broader note on pirate release? This is of concern to the committee and is an important context. It is not for further debate now, but if his department could give us more background, particularly on how it was done with the EU and contributing nations, we would find that very useful.
It is important that the pirate community, if we can call it that, knows that this operation will go on until the situation is resolved on land and the rule of law comes back right across Somalia.
I thank noble Lords for having participated today, particularly those who are not members of this committee. It has been a huge privilege and pleasure for me to be chair of the committee over four years—although all committee members have put me under great pressure most of the time, quite rightly—but this will probably be the last report that I present within this Committee Room. I thank the staff of the committee. I am trying to remember who was a part of the team back then, but I know that one of them was Kathryn Colvin. I thank her in particular for having put this report together and for having brought all those witnesses in front of us as well as she did. I commend the report to the Grand Committee.
Defence Capabilities: EUC Report
Lord Teverson Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord Teverson
That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report of the European Union Committee on European Defence Capabilities: lessons from the past, signposts for the future (31st Report, Session 2010–12, HL Paper 292).
Lord Teverson
My Lords, we move from the defence of circus animals to the defence of the half a billion people who reside within the European Union and perhaps those beyond as well. I shall give a brief background, although noble Lords will be aware of most of it, to give a context and then go through some of our key recommendations and move forward from there to what I, as committee chair, see as the most important issues to be addressed in this area.
We should remember that the CSDP is very recent. It is just over 10 years old. In many ways, it arose out of the brave movement of the St Malo agreement, which took a lot of people by surprise at the time, and we could perhaps objectively and critically say that it did not fulfil its potential at the time.
In a way, there was an important area in which clarity of definition was made before that, in 1992 as part of the Western European Union, namely, the Petersberg tasks. It is important to remember what those are. They are all around humanitarian assistance, conflict prevention and peacekeeping, crisis management and peacemaking, and post-conflict stabilisation. To this day, I think that describes very well the role and the expanse of European Union defence capability and vision.
One thing that the European Union is certainly not about, nor does it intend at any time soon to be about, is territorial defence of the “homeland” of Europe from external threats. In fact, that is one of the problems in the defence world, because the majority of Europe’s population—although not all of it—do not see any conventional, external territorial threat to member states of the European Union, the exception being still the nervousness of some central and eastern European states, which understandably are still very nervous about the instability—in a political sense, and certainly in a long-term sense—of the Russian Federation and perhaps its longer-term issues and challenges. However, there is no commonly agreed external territorial threat. That makes it very difficult during a time of budget cuts and restraints and all the difficulties where social programmes are being squeezed at the moment, where some European states, such as the Republic of Ireland within an EU context, are under huge pressures fiscally. Clearly defence has to take a hit out of that as well, so we have a difficult situation at the moment.
There are three current missions: Operation Althea in Bosnia, which has been there for some time now; Somali piracy, which we have discussed in Grand Committee a number of times; and the more recent Somali training operation, which takes place in Uganda. There is likely to be a future Mali mission very soon as well. In the past there have been a mission in Macedonia, two missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a mission in Chad. Some of those missions have not been very comfortable, if you like, not almost civilian, take-it-easy missions. They have a hard edge to them. Some of our witnesses made it very clear that if fighting had to take place it would have done. They are the same troops that are used in NATO operations in Afghanistan and operations in Iraq. They are the same people, the same military forces, and are capable of taking those sorts of actions.
Perhaps it is worth looking at some of the statistics, because we are not always aware of the importance of European defence. For instance, we were told by witnesses that one-third of global defence expenditure outside the United States is European. It has just been overtaken by China, but we are big spenders in terms of defence. In terms of military personnel, more than 1.5 million of our citizens are in uniform in the European Union, and that is greater than in the United States. On the other side of that, we are atrocious in terms of research and investment in weaponry. The rather fuzzy statistic that came out to us is that probably three-quarters of those 1.6 million personnel are non-deployable, and that is one of the themes that I want to come back to in my opening address on this area.
The other issue that noble Lords will be aware of is that European defence expenditure is dominated by two member states, France and the United Kingdom. In reality only those two member states are willing and able within a reasonable timeframe to wage rather more aggressive campaigns where necessary outside our territory. There are very few others that are able to take that strain. Again, that theme might cause difficulty in the future.
The other part of the context is, “a changing world”. I have already talked about the budgetary side, which affects not just Europe but the United States, although perhaps not so much some of the Pacific nations. However, what is clear apart from that is the change of stance of the United States in a way that has been utterly predictable since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War in 1989. That is that future security priorities for the United States will be in the Pacific theatre. They will not be within Europe; and the United States—and I am sure that this will be the case whichever Administration take charge in Washington at the beginning of next year—will have to make major budgetary cuts, programmed at the moment at some $0.5 trillion over the present budget-programming period. So we have a very different scenario in that area.
There is a different philosophy, to a degree, within the United States which is the idea—denied by some of our American witnesses—of leading from behind. The US, in the Libyan operation, had to provide the resources that were necessary—there were European capability gaps—while saying, “Europe, this is on your doorstep. You have to take the operational strain of this, once we have started the operation”. Surprise, surprise, the United Kingdom, France and some of our closer allies managed to deliver, at least on that ask.
I will consider some of the main recommendations, but before I do so, I should mention that one of our final sentences and one of the things that was clearest to us as a committee as we went through this, was the obvious and fundamental discovery that member states and nation states within Europe make decisions about defence, their budgets and how they co-ordinate their forces with other nation states. Because of that, anything that is good for Europe, in terms of better and more effective defence expenditure, is good for NATO—and that is equally good for the European Union and any other bilateral or multilateral organisation or alliance that takes place. These are not alternatives but win-win situations if we get them right. So the institutional arguments can be a destructive distraction from some of the key issues.
I shall quickly go through some of the main areas in the report. As regards NATO versus the European Union, one of the areas that the External Affairs Sub-committee has been concerned about on many occasions is the inability of the EU and NATO in terms of military forces to work together at operational level because of the difficulties over Turkey, Cyprus and so on. Certainly as regards Afghanistan, we found that that actually threatened the lives of European civilian operational staff in terms of carrying out their duties. That to us is fundamentally unacceptable. We of course say that a resolution to this has to be found. We obviously have the Berlin Plus agreement under which the EU can use NATO resources, when agreed by NATO. They are currently still used in Bosnia—that was agreed some time ago—but there is no prospect of similar co-operation in the future. We need to resolve it, and both sides of the argument know that.
Another area that came out as regards NATO was that Europe has to pull its weight and contribute to NATO, otherwise America will lose interest in it. Something I had not thought about before, not being a defence expert, was that NATO is a unique organisation. There is no other similar integrated organisation, certainly not since the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, which enables the United States to operate so closely with allies. However, we should not take it for granted and feel relaxed as a consequence.
An area that the press took up when the report was released was the role of Germany. We were critical of Germany’s 1.5% defence expenditure, but perhaps more so of its reserved position in the Security Council over Libya. We feel strongly that European defence cannot work properly without Germany playing a full part in it. However, some witnesses made it very clear that some nations within the European Union might be concerned if Germany increased defence expenditure to 2%, but we think that is well and truly a risk worth taking.
We welcome the UK-France model and the two defence treaties of 2010. We think this is a potential model for use in other areas. It shows that Europe is serious about defence and combining its defence capabilities. It is not the only example of that in Europe but it is certainly the most important one. However, there is a risk that the rest of the European Union will say, “France and the United Kingdom get on with it. You do it very well. That is your role. We are not up to that. We will retreat back out of that”. We believe that that could cause much concern in the future.
As regards the staffing of CSDP missions, we are very aware that resource targets for civilian missions are never met. This is degrading for the image of the European Union. European Union civilian or military missions are always exceedingly small compared with NATO operations and their modest resource needs must be met. It is outrageous that medical support was not obtained in the Uganda-Somali operation. That is unacceptable. In Operation Atalanta, there was very little air surveillance, but it was finally provided by Luxembourg. Large capability gaps were evident in the Libyan operation in surveillance, air-to-air refuelling, transport, medical support and smart munitions. Clearly, Europe needs to operate much better in that area. It is strange, or perhaps not, that battle groups have not been used. However, for them to have credibility they have to be audited, as they would be in NATO. When there is an opportunity to use them, as there has been, they should be used where that is appropriate.
The biggest message that came out of the report concerns deployment. The irony is that if Europe spent its financial resources and deployed people slightly more effectively, and deployed them in different places, and co-ordinated what each nation did, it could be amazingly effective even on reduced resources resulting from budget cuts. That must be the main message that comes out of this report.
Europe needs a defence capability. There are a number of models: the EU model; the NATO model; and multilateral and bilateral models. That is great; none of those opposes each other. What is good for the EU is good for NATO and is good for Europe. We must get that deployment right. Europe has to stand up for itself and be able to show that it is prepared to defend itself.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, first, I want to thank my noble friend for a positive and considered reply to this report, which I strongly welcome. I will be very brief. We have heard some excellent speeches and some memorable ones. It is the first time I have heard the “w” word used in a Lords debate but, as the report said, we live in changing times. So there we are.
I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, for participating in the debate because he provided an anchor of real experience in this whole area. I take the criticism from the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, because some of it is correct. What we tried to achieve, and one of the things that came out in this report, was clarity. What it showed to us as a sub-committee was that where there was difficulty in understanding the whole picture, when you put all those pieces of the jigsaw together, it not only made a picture but made sense as well. Many of those arguments are repeated, but they are important. Many noble Lords mentioned the comment that taxpayers are being short-changed, and that was the strongest message that came out of today. That Britain should and can lead in this area in the European Union is for sure.
On the nuclear side, I apologise to my noble friend Lady Miller that we did not mention nuclear. Perhaps that should have been there. It is not, as such, an EU competence in terms of strike forces, but one of the UK-French defence treaties is specifically around the nuclear side, and we should deal with that.
The point on A400M was a quote from our evidence. I think everyone recognised the severe problems with A400M and all the lessons that needed to be learnt. The committee has responsibilities with the French Parliament in looking at the UK-French defence treaties. One of the core things that we are concerned about there, as the Minister said, is that we should not go from two, where we collaborate, to a point where that complexity becomes great again so that we cannot deliver programmes of the right sort on time and on budget.
Lastly, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, that he gave me great insight into Question Time in this House by saying that one should hang back to see who else speaks. Today I started to speak over my noble friend Lady Trumpington, and that was one of the biggest mistakes that I have ever made in my career in this House. I withdrew very quickly.
I thank noble Lords very much indeed for an excellent debate. I thank the clerk, Kathryn Colvin, and her small team for all the work that they did in bringing this report together. I commend the report to the Grand Committee.
Armed Forces: Foreign Pilot Training
Lord Teverson Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Teverson
My Lords, the European Defence Agency recently awarded helicopter training for six NATO and Partners for Peace organisations to AgustaWestland, which will take place in Wiltshire. Does the Minister agree that this is an excellent role for the EDA and an excellent result? Does he see other opportunities from the EDA for similar training in the United Kingdom?
Lord Astor of Hever
I thank my noble friend for that question. I am not fully briefed on what we could get from the EDA, but we welcome our foreign friends and allies sending pilots for training over here. We give an excellent service.